EAR/ONS and a Doctored Theory

If you keep your eye beetled on the white line dividing lanes while driving you will crash. To drive safely and with ease, you have to keep everything in proportion and be in total balance. Concentrating on a point will blind you.

Basic, no?

It is the same with investigating. You must fit every hypothesis into the greater framework.

There is a theory regarding EAR’s work association. It proposes that he worked in some level of the medical profession. This theory was basically nonexistent in any acceptable medium until it came out in Lt. Richard Shelby’s book Hunting a Psychopath. In his tome, Shelby notes the number of times unconnected victims had some recent contact with a doctor, hospital, or some form of recent contact with the medical profession. On occasion, a neighbor may have been the person who had this job association.

Long face, perhaps he even used wigs, crafty, such a young man was seen only before-the-fact in the general area of the victimized neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, Lt. Shelby never sewed the hypothesis together, especially in light of the known facts about EAR/ONS’s stalking MO. The medical profession is very large and diverse. Someone who works in the profession is not going to have broad contacts throughout the entire profession. Someone working for a particular doctor could target patients of that doctor, but the victims of the EAR were not united by having the same doctor. Shelby also doesn’t tell us statistically how commonplace it would be to find someone in any given neighborhood who is associated with the medical profession. Without the comparison the hypothesis falls flat, especially since it never led anywhere in his investigation.

Logistically, the theory requires that we must assume that if EAR worked in the medical profession he would have to work in a level of it where he could assess prospective victims first visually, else they are just names on a chit. He then must drive to their neighborhoods and then must confine himself to neighborhoods that allow him tactical support. He must then limit himself to homes that are positioned according to his tactical needs– along canals, parks, levees, creeks, bike paths, etc.

There is so much winnowing involved here the process required is laborious at best and impossible at worst.

Moreover, the pattern of his strikes cannot be explained by the medical theory.

If EAR was based in the East Area and selecting prospective victims from a doctor’s office, hospital or pharmacy, why does the pattern show the predator was stalking only certain communities that fit his tactical needs? In addition, why does EAR’s strike pattern not include all the viable areas of the eastern suburbs of Sacramento? Rather he limits himself to the Highway 50 area and then deep in Carmichael. He always pivoted to the Highway 50 area– in Orangevale, La Riviera, and he continued to come back to Rancho Cordova.

Only twice did EAR strike off Highway 80 in the north. This came much later in his crime spree with victims 25 and 28. Yet if he was selecting victims from some mutual contact with them in the East Area, he would have had a lot of contact with people around Highway 80 in the Foothills area. It is not far for anybody up there to come to a doctor or hospital in the crowded East Area where the medical profession is largely based in the Sacramento area. In fact, it is unavoidable. Why did EAR never strike north of Highway 80 until much later in his crime wave?

EAR remained around Highway 50 and within Carmichael, except for twice in south Sac area and then in other towns west or south of Sacramento.

The pattern above, the locations of where EAR struck, is not explainable by the medical theory. If he was based in the East Area in Carmichael, as was believed back then, he could have been striking north of Greenback Lane (dark red) and on the other side of Highway 80 from the very beginning. Rather the pattern shows he stalked communities within easier reach for him and confined himself to these comfort zones.

There is nothing to indicate that EAR had a central location in the East Area where he visually had contact with people and then had some list of addresses he could go scout. Everything points to a villain who stalked certain communities first and then selected victims based on their home’s location and personal appeal.

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Since 1990 Gian J. Quasar has investigated a broad range of mysterious subjects, from strange disappearances to serial murders, earning in that time the unique distinction of being likened to “the real life Kolchak.” However, he is much more at home with being called The Quester. “He’s bloody eccentric, an historian with no qualifications who sticks his nose into affairs and gets results.” He is the author of several books, one of which inspired a Resolution in Congress.